Blue collar Keystone jobs not good enough for Obama?

Nov. 18, 2014, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens today issued the following statement disputing President Barack Obama’s November 14 claim that the Keystone pipeline is not a “massive jobs bill” for the United States:

“President Obama has consistently discounted his own State Department’s finding that 42,100 jobs will be created by the Keystone XL pipeline rationalizing that they are mostly only temporary construction jobs. This elitist argument is an affront to every man and woman who earns their pay in work gloves and boots, devaluing the work of those who build things in America because of the temporary nature of construction projects.

“Obama, the man who sold a stimulus package based upon the false notion that it was going to be used to provide “shovel ready” jobs, now finds himself in the position of arguing that those exact jobs don’t count. Yes, construction jobs are temporary, because construction projects get completed. That doesn’t mean that those jobs are not valuable, as they give workers employment who then move on to the next project that needs to be built.

“Here’s the news flash for the President and his cronies, all jobs are temporary (except government civil service ones). Every private sector employee all the way from the janitor to the CEO is temporary, and this includes the job of President of the United States and all his political minions. To deride the economic value of a project because the jobs it creates are mostly done by blue collar construction workers shows just how far this President has strayed from the Democratic Party’s traditional labor employee base.”

Attachments:

President Barack Obama: “My hope would be that any reporter who is looking at the facts would take the time to confirm that the most realistic estimates are this might create maybe 2,000 jobs during the construction of the pipeline — which might take a year or two — and then after that we’re talking about somewhere between 50 and 100 [chuckles] jobs in a economy of 150 million working people.” Interview with The New York Times, July 24, 2013 at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/us/politics/interview-with-president-obama.html

Interview Availability:Please contact Americans for Limited Government at (202)744-4427 or at media@limitgov.orgto arrange an interview with ALG experts including ALG President Nathan Mehrens.